Yemen Background by Reuters

It's rare for the corporate media to provide context for their news. It's even more rare for an entire article to be devoted to background. Reuters has don that in the case of of the conflicts in Yemen.

I don't know enough about Yemen to critique Reuters' piece, but here are a few highlights and my efforts to read between the lines

Reuters' International Crisis Group, in London, inform us that

The Houthis, like most tribesmen in Yemen's northern highlands, belong to the Zaidi sect of Shi'ite Islam, whose Hashemite line ruled for 1,000 years before the 1962 revolution.

It's worth noting that the U.S. offered of arms and equipment to Saudi Arabia, 1961, and the U.S. hosted a state dinner for King Saud in 1962. It's also worth noting the North Yemen civil war of 1962 - 1970. A military coup, seeking to over throw the royal dynasty and install a republic, was initiated by Nasser's Egypt, who had a variety of motives including including confronting imperialism in general and challenging British colonialism in the South Yemen port of Aden (the port where the USS Cole was bombed). Egypt was backed by the USSR.

On the other hand, Saudi Arabia, with U.S. backing, supported the long-ruling royalists. I believe monarchy was closely aligned with the Houthis tribesmen... who are now being associated with "rebels" in the Reuters piece, as follows:

The conflict [is] with the northern rebels, who complain of social, religious and economic discrimination in the southern Arabian state [of Yemen].

And, as often is the case, the Yemen government of Ali Abdullah Saleh is using the "war on terror" to paint the rebels with a broad brush:

After the September 11, 2001 attacks on U.S. cities, Saleh declared support for Washington's "war on terror," in part to enlist U.S. support against the Houthis, whom Yemeni officials accuse of having links to al Qaeda, Iran or Lebanon's Hezbollah.

My take, without deep research, is that the North Yemen "rebels" have legitimate grievances and President Saleh is probably a new, more modern "monarch"... yes, he was in the military until becoming president of North Yemen in 1978 (Saleh was suspected in the assassination of the previous president). He continued in the presidency after North and South Yemen were united in 1990... in other words, Saleh is a strong man, although like any good democracy, there are elections in Yemen.[3]

So, there you have it.

Sources:

1. Reuters, Factbox: Roots of Yemen's conflict with northern rebels, January, 2010.

2. US Presidential Papers Concerning Saudi Arabia 1941–1962.

3. Wikipedia.

Mexico and Venezuela Cut Back Oil Deliveries to US

Bush can't deliver. He was rebuffed, again, buy Saudi Arabia who refused to expand their oil production at Bush's request. Saudi Arabia did, however, spill out a little embarasing information. According to the AP:

Saudi oil minister Ali al-Naimi said the kingdom decided on May 10 to increase production by 300,000 barrels a day to help meet U.S. needs after Venezuela and Mexico cut back deliveries.

Did I hear that right? Maybe one has to read the shipping news to know that Mexico and Venezuela cut back deliveries to the US. How vulnerable is the US to deeper cut backs?

I'm reminded of Bear Stearns. We found out that they had a foul reputation among other Wall Street firms for their dirty tactics. The word is that Bear Stearns was effectively sacrificed by the other titans of finance in a drastic measure to stabilize the financial sector.

One has to wonder whether a similar analogy is taking form on a global scale, with the US, and its foul reputation abroad, playing the role of Bear Stearns. It's not too hard to imagine the other nations isolating themselves from a US economic implosion for their own survival.

Sources:

Associate Press, Bush fails to win Saudi help on gas prices, TERENCE HUNT, AP White House Correspondent

Then and Now: Bush on How to Handle Oil Prices

On Jan. 26, 2000, during a presidential debate, Bush opposed taking oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve and instead said then-President Clinton should "jawbone" oil producing nations. That week crude oil prices were $28 a barrel.

Today, prices are $127 a barrel. That's a 500% increase since Bush took office. Goldman Sachs predicts oil at $200 a barrel possibly within a year. Bush tried to "jawbone" Saudi Arabia, again, into increasing production. They effectively said, "no." [More]

Sources:

Associate Press, Bush fails to win Saudi help on gas prices, TERENCE HUNT, AP White House Correspondent.

Arc of Southwest Asian War

The latest in a string of bombings in Pakistan sent a message: "Those who spy for America will face this same fate." It might be premature to say that Pakistan is unraveling, but when the mainstream media talks about "further instability" and "another sign" of the Afghan war spilling over into Pakistan, you can deduce the situation is probably worse.

And it is worse, when you consider Southwest Asia as a region, stretching from Pakistan to the horn of Africa (Somalia). The US is conducting overt war in Somalia (with illegal proxy assistance from Ethiopia), Iraq, and Afghanistan. The US is conducting covert warfare in Iran and Pakistan. In addition, the US has taken sides with Israel in the war of occupation against the Palestinians, employing divide-and-conquer techniques by arming the corrupt Fatah against Hamas. The US backed Israel in Lebanon last summer in the war on Hezbollah, supplying fuel and weapons (including cluster bombs).


So, what next? The monarchy of Saudi Arabia is composed of the oil barrons (the royalty and their court) and the fundamentalist Wahabbists (the ones who were actually involed in 9/11 if you believe that version of the story). The phrase "further instability" applies to Saudi Arabia too. The American colonies revolted against their monarchy, and the natural drive for liberty will play out in Saudi Arabia too.

Former National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski made a now-famous statement that bounced around the blogosphere back in February. Here it is again:

A plausible scenario for a military collision with Iran involves Iraqi failure to meet the benchmarks [that is, Bush's surge fails]; followed by accusations of Iranian responsibility for the failure; then by some provocation in Iraq or a terrorist act in the U.S. blamed on Iran; culminating in a “defensive” U.S. military action against Iran that plunges a lonely America into a spreading and deepening quagmire eventually ranging across Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.

Add Saudi Arabia and Somalia to that list and you might as well call it a World War, as depicted in the map above. We're not quite there yet, but Brzezinski has laid out a formula for getting there, and the Democrats seem to be (unwittingly?) playing into it with their blame-the-Iraqi benchmark approach to Iraq.